Guntur: Asian champion Govindan Lakshmanan grabbed a gold medal in men's 5000m race while three meet records fell by the wayside on the opening day of the National Inter-State Athletics Championships on Saturday.

Lakshmanan, representing Tamil Nadu, won the men's 5000m event, clocking 14:07.76. Uttarakhand's Man Singh (14:20.50) and Kalidas Hirave (14:24.91) of Maharashtra were in second and third positions respectively.

File image of Govindan Lakshmanan. PTI

The 27-year old Lakshmanan, who bagged a gold medal at the recently concluded Asian Athletics Championships in Bhubaneswar, has already qualified for the World Championships to be held in London next month.

Suriya, hailing from a small village in Pudukottai in Tamil Nadu, broke the earlier meet record of O P Jaisha (15:57.05), which stood for three years.

In the evening session, Anu Raghavan of Kerala broke the meet record in women's 400m hurdles with a personal best of 57.21secs. Jauna Murmu of Odisha (58.68) and Gujarat's Sarita Gaikwad (1:00.27) finished second and third respectively.

Raghavan, who secured a silver medal at the Asian Championships, improved upon Ashwini Akkunji's meet record of 57.43.

The men's 400m hurdles saw local favourites, Jabir M P (50.33) and M Ramachandran (51.17) of Andhra Pradesh, clinching the top two positions. Tamil Nadu's Santosh Kumar (51.40) came in third place.

Sarita Singh, who set a national record at the Federation Cup last month, also created a new meet record in women's hammer throw with a best throw of 63.22m. She eclipsed the earlier meet record of Manju Bala in her fourth attempt.

Manpreet Kaur did not disappoint Haryana as she picked up gold in women's shot put with an effort of 15.65m. It was a below-par show by the Asian champion but her performance was enough to put her at the top of the podium ahead of UP's Anamika Das (14.42m) and Punjab's Ramanpreet Kaur (14.25m).

By the virtue of winning their respective events in the Asian Championships, Lakshmanan and Manpreet have already qualified for the World Championships but no other athlete qualified for the mega event, to be held in London, on the first day of the competition on Saturday.